Andrew, the leader!

I had a meeting with Andrew's team at school this afternoon.  This team consists of his teachers, his inclusion specialist, and the school's Adaptive Learning Center liaison.  Now that he's been in school for a few weeks and they've gotten to see how Andrew does in class, interacts with his peers, follows directions, etc, they wanted to sit down and go over his goals for the year.  All of their concerns were things that we already knew about, such as difficulty transitioning between activities.  They're already seeing progress, though, and are sure it's going to continue to get better throughout the year.

What I didn't expect to hear, however, is how much of an asset Andrew is proving to be in the classroom.  His outgoing personality and his intelligence are turning out to be very helpful for the teachers.  Just a few examples-

- Whenever they walk somewhere within the school, such as the playground or music class, the kids all have to hold the hand of a buddy.  The teachers know that Andrew will walk, follow directions, and get to their location without any problem, so they pair him up with a child who would likely wander off or not follow directions.

- Every morning, his class sings a welcome song.  Each kid has a popsicle stick with their name and picture on it that's kept in a pocket on the wall.  In the song, each kid says their name when it's their turn, then the teacher takes the stick, shows it to the class, and moves it to another pocket that shows they're in the classroom today.  Think of it as toddler roll-call.  Andrew now helps move the sticks because he recognizes the pictures and can read their names, something that nobody else in his class can do yet.  He looks through the pile of sticks, finds the right one, shows it to the class, and puts it where it belongs.

- At story time each day, the teacher will talk about the cover of the book first.  She will ask the kids what they see and they'll try to come up with ideas about what the story is about.  Since Andrew loves to describe things, he's the first one to jump in and say "Red and blue bird, flying up in the sky!"  He's always happy to jump in and contribute, which makes me VERY happy.

All in all, everything they had to say was great!  They are all excited to see how well he's going to do the rest of the school year!

I also thought I'd share some cute pictures from the school's music class today!

A Day At The Fair!

Today, we packed up and took Andrew to the Coweta County Fair, to spend a day with his friends Noah and Molly.  Andrew had a great time.  He rode several rides (some by himself), slid down a huge slide, went on a ferris wheel, and got to pet and feed some goats, a yak, and a mini horse.

Emily and Andrew on the ferris wheel.

Way up there!

Driving his own 4-wheeler.

High five!!

Taking a ride with Noah.

Feeding some goats.

Flying fish!

And a flying elephant.

Feeding the animals:

Riding the rides:

Preschool is AWESOME!

Andrew loves it!  He is super excited to go and exhausted and smiling when I pick him up.

Building sandcastles with friends.

A little help to put his name on his latest masterpiece.

How do you celebrate a good day at school?
A trip to the park!

. . . . and maybe a little ice cream. 

Second week of school!

So far, so good!  Andrew really seems to like school.  We get all sorts of pictures throughout the week, which is great!  I love knowing what types of things he's doing day to day.  I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from this week so you can see just how much fun he's having!

His classroom, bright and early before a herd of two
year olds have gotten the chance to make a mess!

Playing in the sandbox.

Snacking on snap peas and plums with a friend.

Time for a story!

Young artists, hard at work.

The final masterpiece.

Working with clay.

First Day of School!

How did we get to this point already?  He's growing up so fast!  Today was Andrew's first day of preschool.  He's in a classroom with nine other students, two teachers, and his very own "inclusion specialist."  The I.S. is there to help him throughout the day with anything he might have trouble with, such as transitions between activities or listening/following directions.  When Andrew is doing well, the I.S. is just like an additional teacher, helping out with all of the other kids.

Yesterday, Andrew helped me tie dye a t-shirt for him to wear for photos this morning.  We made it with a men's large t-shirt, and I plan on making him take a picture in it every year until he finishes college.  It was a little hard to get a good picture of him in the shirt.  He was too excited to sit still.  We might have to recreate this photo this weekend when Sam is able to help.

At some point, this shirt will likely be
too small for him.  I can't wait to see the
photos from all the school years and see
how much he's changed.

Looking quite dapper in his first day of
school outfit!

One more quick picture before we went inside!

One of the bonuses of Andrew having an aide is that Sam
and I get photo updates throughout the day!

Apparently Andrew and this little boy really hit it off.
After playing puzzles for a while, they shared a snack
of fresh peaches together.

This is what Andrew was doing when I went to pick him up.
At the end of the day, they have some free-play time.  Not
surprisingly, Andrew was playing with the puzzles again.
Here, his I.S. and little classmate were giving him a hand.

Sweaty, messy, and smiling from ear to ear.  I
think it's safe to say that he had a great first
day at school!

 We also get daily e-mail updates from his I.S. every afternoon.  She said he had a great first day!  He had a little difficulty with transitions, especially when he had to stop doing something that he loved.  But, he was easily redirected and would quickly join in the new activity.  That's all pretty standard behavior for a two year old, and he had a easier day than a lot of his classmates!  She is very excited for this year and so are we!

Andrew is reading!

Yes.  I said it.  Andrew is reading!  It's exciting and slightly terrifying all at the same time.  I bought him a new puzzle game today, one that's meant for older kids, to try to challenge him and see how much he knows.  I took this video as soon as I opened up the game and thought you'd like to see it.

Therapy Update

Andrew's been in speech therapy since October of last year, and started with ABA in May.  He's doing really well with both and loves his therapists!  We're going to be stopping speech next month when he starts preschool, but we'll continue with ABA for the foreseeable future.

ABA is hard to describe.  It stands for Applied Behavioral Analysis, and is a reward-based therapy program that can help with just about any skill a child has trouble with.  On occasion, his therapist takes videos of some of their sessions together, so I thought I'd share some of them here.  Maybe it'll make it a little easier to understand what types of things he's working on.

Kids on the spectrum frequently have problems thinking and reacting quickly.  Their brains get stuck on one type of thinking and it's hard to transition.  His therapist quickly asks a bunch of questions that require him to change the way he's thinking.  When he gets stuck, you can see her gently suggesting the right answer.  In ABA, the kid is "never wrong."  The therapist will help as much as necessary to make sure the kid gets the right answer and positive reinforcement.  The next time, she'll use a little less, so on and so forth, until Andrew gets everything on his own.  In this session, you can see him asking for "Phonics."  When Andrew works hard, he gets rewarded.  Sometimes it's snacks, sometimes it's tickles, and on this particular day, he was working to get to play "Hooked on Phonics" on the iPad.

We're also working on Andrew's fear of haircuts.  They've started having pretend haircuts to get him more used to the process.  Usually, he screams and cries as soon as he gets in the chair.  During therapy, they go through all the steps that are required of a haircut at his barber.  When they first started, Andrew wanted nothing to do with it.  As you can see in this video, he's getting a bit better.  He's still not thrilled with it, but he doesn't cry or fight it.  I'll be interested in seeing how this translates for his next haircut!

This last video is from this morning.  He's already able to answer questions much faster, and goes for longer stretches without asking for rewards.  He really loves his therapist and works really hard to make her happy.

Each of these videos is less than a minute long, but he works for two hours at a time, twice a week.  It wears him out, but he does very well at it.  He rarely complains, even when he's forced to do things he doesn't want to.  The therapist is working on skills to help him get ready for school next month, and will work closely with his school aide to make sure that Andrew is doing the very best he can.  We're all very proud of how well he's doing and hope to continue seeing so much progress!